Why Has Pride Died? 7 Reasons The Big Brands Bailed

[00:00:00]I mean, I'm not even quite sure what to say about that, especially when you remember that this person is born male.

[00:00:10]I mean, I might just move on cuz I really just don't know what to say. I think anybody listening to this podcast is having the same reaction as me.

[00:00:22]Welcome to This Isn't Working, the podcast for employers and employees who think it's time to talk about the failings of workplace [music] culture and how we can do better. I'm your host, Tanya Degrrenvald, an HR commentator who's watching, listening, and hopefully asking the right questions. Okay, let's get this working.

[00:00:41][music] Hi everybody. So today we're asking why has Pride died? Looking at this question from an employer perspective, now that there's clear evidence that the UK's biggest brands are losing their appetite for rainbows and drag queens, we'll analyze what this tells us about the conversations, calculations, and power struggles happening behind the scenes at the organizations who have bailed, or as they might say, decided to go in a different direction this year? Are they stepping away because so-called LGBT has become too political? Or do they recognize it as bad business as they sharpen their focus on productivity and profit? or is it simply that it's no longer fashionable? I should just say that I'm not saying everybody has binned pride or that it's completely died everywhere. Um I know that there are still brands who are still very into this stuff and have been very visible, but I think there's a real sense of pride fatigue. So, I definitely wasn't surprised to see a continuation of diminishing interest and appetite. I've been noticing it. I noticed it last summer for Pride 25. And I also noticed that trans awareness week in November 2025 was pretty much completely dead as well. The appetite just wasn't there.

[00:01:48]You could see it from the confidence levels of the of the trainers who were previously loving it and it was all going brilliantly. Their their energy levels really really dipped. So I was I was going to be very surprised it was suddenly going to make a comeback in 2026 and it definitely hasn't. Having said to that, plenty of plenty of brands are still flying all the flags. All the flags regardless of what they might mean to some people. Um, so Sky produced a huge TV advert which has been everywhere with they they them all over it.

[00:02:19]>> And this is who we are.

[00:02:23]>> We are unique. [music] We are authentic, >> unapologetic.

[00:02:30]>> We still feel uncertain.

[00:02:33]But when we are united, >> we are unstoppable.

[00:02:40]>> We are proud of [music] who we are.

[00:02:43]>> We believe in better.

[00:02:47]>> Sky also had a big bus at Pride in London on the 4th of July, as did Little, Tesco, Hilton, Heart Radio, and Brooklyn Brewery. I know this because I was actually there. Um, but now I would say that those big brands are starting to look like the outliers who kind of didn't get the memo.

[00:03:11][music] or they did get the memo and they're kind of doubling down. I my my instinct is that those are the brands which are either based abroad, so they haven't quite tuned in with the UK public mood or whether the senior leaders who are still really really into this stuff, especially middle-aged gay men. And I would say um I would say that particularly at Sky and at Tesco. Now, the activists blame the right-wing press. Um, and their opponents assume that that the big brands have finally accepted go woke, go broke and begrudgingly binned the bunting.

[00:03:49]Personally, I don't actually buy either explanation. I think the truth is much more interesting than that. I've come up with, I think, seven reasons why I think pride died in 2026. So, I'm going to run through those. It's going to be mainly me this episode with a few bits and pieces from James Roberts, from um, Human Gay Male, who I spoke to earlier this week. his group represents gay men who are not on board with all the gender identity stuff at all and and see being being a gay man as as something that's definitely to do with biological sex, but this is what he had to say.

[00:04:18]>> I think increasingly it's become political in terms of we want to show we are supporting something specific, not just the marketing side of it. And the danger with that is it's become not understanding what it is they are supporting. So I think that's the change we're seeing this year and even even last year to begin to start with is that shift from well we've been doing this we've been involved in this because it benefits us because we we look good we might sell more um you know our staff are engaged in it uh to realizing actually what what does this really mean being involved in this so the the shine has gone off that because things have come to light I think there's also an element of actually if this isn't the flavor of the month anymore or we're going to move on to something else and we weren't really genuinely deeply engaged in this emotionally or politically or whatever. We were quite cynical in why we were doing it. So, it's very easy to drop and move on to the next bright thing. So, I think there's an element of that as well is that this has never been genuinely deeply supportive of anyone from companies. It's been a commercial thing which is why it's easier or for those where it's been like that, it's easier to move on to the next thing. So the first reason why I think Pride died is cold hard commercialism. And as I say, we've all heard the phrase go woke go broke and Bud Light and Jaguar are often held up as as brands um which totally misjudged the public mood and backfired really badly for them. Um we also know that uh President Trump is allergic to DEI. um his 2025 executive orders landed pretty hard on law firms and consultancies particularly um who are keen to keep doing doing business with with the US government. So those firms have listened and learned. But here I'm talking about something slightly different. This is part of a bigger trend that I've seen which is led by the private sector towards much sharper focus on productivity and profit. The economic landscape is really tough at the moment for all sorts of reasons and the mood among them has really shifted.

[00:06:13]So, a few years ago, we saw firms who were happy to fund nice to have feel-good branding and um internal events, lots of lots of rainbows and bunting and external speakers. But now, they're really streamlining. They're cutting costs and frankly, they're in a pretty ruthless mood. So, they're cutting jobs everywhere. They're working out what can be moved abroad more cheaply or replaced with AI. And there's very little patience left for anything that isn't helping the organization hit its targets. How do I know this? Um, one of the reasons why I haven't done as many episodes of this podcast this year is um I've been busy uh building my new new business network which is called this this is working um and in June we ran um an event on exactly this theme which was called how can employers depoliticize the workplace. I'll put the details in the show notes for people that are interested in the content which is going live very very soon. The overall message from the room was that the smartest employers now admit that welcoming politics, especially this special brand of social justice activism, into the workplace was a mistake and they're now taking steps to remove it. That's especially noticeable at the slightly smaller organizations where leadership sits closer to the sharp end. So, so the employers um who've got their brain switched on have moved from seeing this stuff as sort of harmless nice to have kind of fluff essentially, whether it was good fluff or bad fluff or toxic toxic fluff as I've called it in the past, to seeing it as an annoying distraction. Um, in the words of one leader I spoke to, is any of this helping us to sell more kitchen appliances, if not get rid of it? So these people who run these sorts of businesses or or in senior levels, senior uh leadership roles, these are growth people. These are builders. They don't care if a few activists are upset that the that the bunting's been binned this year. To them, these people are the irritating flies at the picnic and every hour spent on this kind of stuff is an hour not spent on the actual purpose of the business.

[00:08:07]It's not just time [sighs] that's a problem either. They reached the conclusion that um confu this this sort of stuff is all part of creating this bring your whole self to work idea which is actually confusing their employees and making them harder to manage. It's also creating a risk of division and conflict among staff tribunals and grievances things like that. As more employees uh speak up and flag the legal and reputational risks in this area, it seems like more employees also who don't love this stuff are finding ways to raise the problems with it without putting their own necks on the line. So they're able to say, "Oo, there's a problem with this. Has this been checked by legal? Um we need to make sure we're compliant." Also, not everybody loves all this messaging for various reasons.

[00:08:53]It's easier to do that than it once was.

[00:08:55]Certainly, that's what we're hearing.

[00:08:56]Actually, James Roberts had some interesting comments on this as well.

[00:09:00]>> We've had quite a few of our members say about they've raised the question.

[00:09:03]Either they've made a formal complaint at work or they put a question on the internet or they've brought it up with a senior manager. Obviously, it can be risky depending on where you work and there's there's a a fear of cancellation and and repercussions. But um where stuff has changed quite a few people have said about either myself or there's a group of us or people are challenging this and asking the question either say directly complaining or just saying have we considered the risk on this or have we actually looked into what this means.

[00:09:30]So I think that's a big thing the um individual senior leadership making changes or either because the staff have changed or uh they've taken responsibility for so it's the where there hasn't been oversight they've stepped in but where there's been a change of of staff um parallel to that with the change of staff if there's not uh the kind of zealot pushing it either as a senior person or somebody with special responsibility for inclusion on is if those people have moved on or changed roles uh that makes a difference. So there the the impact that an individual raising the question can have and the impact that an individual in the role either as a senior manager or the removal of someone who's been pushing it can make quite a lot of change in terms of what actually happens with the organization. This isn't uh kind of root and branch. It's it appears as if this organization or this company or this business is all about this whereas actually it's not. It's just the loud bit because it's cheap and there's someone pushing it.

[00:10:31]>> Um, also discussed at my event, there's there's been a quiet wave of staff networks being defunded, disbanded, or stripped of their influence, disempowered in some way. I think they have now concluded that these groups, although they seem like a good idea for about 5 minutes around 2020, um, they're now seen as creating more risk than benefit. That would definitely chime with what I've been seeing on LinkedIn from the activist um speakers and trainers. I use the term loosely um who've been saying since May that's that they're just not getting booked for the speaker gigs that they used to get and we're certainly getting um two years ago. It was quieter last year as well, but that really really seems to have dried up. So that so quite often the budget for those external people coming in would be given directly to the LGBT staff group who didn't seem to have a huge amount of oversight. um from more senior people and were allowed to do their own thing. The only reason why those speaker gigs would be drying up would be because the employers have taken control. So, of course, no one's saying any of this stuff openly. It's all very behind the scenes and very harsh hush. Um I think the the conversations are happening at senior level quite robustly, but the the the messaging being pushed out internally is much quieter and certainly externally again much more careful what we're seeing. So, we're seeing lots of them doing what they do best, which is hiding behind sort of business euphemisms and corporate jargon. There's lots of talk of resetting, realigning, and reviewing.

[00:11:59]They're asking lots of rhetorical questions like, hm, is it time to reassess whether we listen to a broad enough range of voices on this? That's the kind of thing. I'm sure you know it.

[00:12:09]So, if they're not saying, "Oh my god, what have we been doing? People hate this stuff. We need to bin it really quickly." What are they actually saying?

[00:12:17]So there's four kind of themes that I've seen. The first one I would call the evolving landscape narrative. So this is when they say things like the operating environment has changed, right? Which is very passive language. And the idea is that nobody chose to retreat. This isn't really a huge deal. Circumstances simply shifted around them. The second one is the commercial logic narrative. This is when they say things like we're aligning with our business strategy and and objectives. So they're sort of reframing a political retreat as as sort of pure boring good management. Again, nothing to see here.

[00:12:52]The third one is the neutrality narrative where they'll say something like, "We're avoiding taking positions on divisive issues." And that's them casting a withdrawal as principled impartiality rather than capitulation to any particular group, thereby trying to avoid getting bogged down in those conversations about politics between between employees when it all hits the fan. And the fourth one is the sort of redirected resources narrative. So they'll say things like we're focusing on where we can have the most impact.

[00:13:20]And that's that sort of reasoning is used to justify quietly moving money away from visible sponsorship and it may or may not turn up spent on something else internally or more quietly. Um [snorts] when when we look at these sorts of language uh games that they're all playing now, it strikes me as on one level a little bit funny. I know it's not funny the whole big picture, but the social justice activists have been brilliant at playing language games for many years. Um, and and it's been through twisting the meanings of certain words that they've been able to make that progress. And I wonder if on some level perhaps they've finally met their match because it's because now it's the cor corporations who are doing the gaslighting. So they'll say things like um we're sunsetting our staff groups. So lots of those sorts of those sorts of phrases popping up. So that's the sort of thing they were saying at my event in June when talking about um how to depoliticize the workplace. I can't give examples obviously from that event because it was all you know confidential for them but there's a few things that I've seen since then which have really which have really illustrated the point.

[00:14:23]So on the 10th of June the times quoted a chap quoted a chap called Fernando Fernandez who's the new CEO of Uni Lever which is the owner of Dove PEL and Helman's. Um, and it's a business that has leaned very hard into social purpose advertising um, over the years and and that's also trickled down to them only using advertising agencies who also sign up to all the DEI stuff that they were doing.

[00:14:47]>> Do you still support that purpose for Dove?

[00:14:50]>> Yeah, I mean there was of course famously one of your investors says does Helman's mayonnaise need a purpose? Uh >> I just every brand stands for something you know and of course the first point is you have to deliver functional superiority you have to great aesthetics great sensorials etc but differentiated brands have an anchor has something that consumer can identify you know and of course I stick for this the only thing that is very very important I'm absolutely obsessed with the consumer preference drivers in every category I will never support principles in our brand that are not anchor >> that don't real consumer needs.

[00:15:33]>> Is that what happened? Do you feel like you lost touch with the consumer?

[00:15:37]>> I I will not comment about the past. You know, I'm interested in the future. You know, >> now that's that may I mean that may sound like a whole lot of corporate waffle to lots of people listening, but that's quite a blunt signal that they're going back to doing what customers want and they want to shift products. So, that's a change. I've got another case study for you as well. This one came into me privately from a member of staff at Pets at Home, um, which has actually 16,000 staff working across stores, grooming salons, and vet practices. Um, those of you that follow this stuff closely may remember that in 2024, James Essie's drew attention to the retailers diversity and inclusion handbook, which which seemed to be pressuring staff to declare their gender pronouns, discuss white privilege, and it uses used uh terms like cisgender. So, this is what one long-erving employee told me. Um, I've worked at Pets at Home for many years. It went from being a friendly place to work to being a place that was captured by ideology. It seemed to forget what its actual business was and that business began to fail. It became very interested in pronouns, constant DEI re-education of staff, bringing in external activist speakers and promoting a trans agenda. The CEO, Lisa McGawan, left the business with immediate effect in 2025 after a long period of company decline. The new CEO, James Bailey, had a has a strong retail background.

[00:17:01]A very strident DEI officer also left.

[00:17:04]The role was absorbed into HR during a support office restructure where a lot of jobs were lost. It's a more it's a lot more low-key now. More recently, the company has backed off from activism and reduce the general promotion of ideology. Involvement in Manchester Pride was apparently cancelled because although the head office is in Manchester, uh we're a national company. That was the reason given announced on the company internet rather than by email.

[00:17:30]business is going better now which is good to see and maybe not a coincidence.

[00:17:35]So that's a good example. I think we are generally seeing lots of heads of DEI are leaving big firms and not being replaced. We're also seeing CEOs with social justice agendas are being are also being replaced with more business focused people. Um it's funny actually I would I would also put the CIPD in that group. So Peter Cheese has who's been there 14 years has just left in June and he's being replaced by Neil Carbury in September. He's again much more commercial. I think it's so actually the CIPD itself is probably quite a good example of that kind of mood. The second reason why I think Pride has become much less appealing for many of these brands this year is that they've registered that it's a massive exposure to backlash and a risk to their brand. So basically doing anything publicly on this issue now actively invites scrutiny and the accusation of rainbow washing. Um it draws attention to questions that firms would frankly rather not answer. Are they backing LGBT rights everywhere that they operate including in the territories where it's arguably needed most like parts of Africa Africa and the Middle East? And possibly even more importantly what does standing under a rainbow flag draw attention to elsewhere in the business? for example, the their environmental record, their supply chain, their government contracts and conflicts they're involved with around the world. Let's take the tech giant Cisco as an example. So, at London Pride last year, July 2025, they had a big float, right, which they presumably spent a lot of money on. But activists from the group, a group called Youth Demand, brought the entire parade to a standstill for around an hour as four protesters threw red paint over Cisco's float right on Piccadilly, right in the heart of London, and then sat down and glued themselves to it, accusing the tech giant of pinkwashing over its ties to the uh Israeli military and its communications technology. Five people were arrested and it made um international headlines. Exactly the kind of story that a sponsor pays a great deal of money to avoid, but they had actually paid money to attract it.

[00:19:39]That's the irony.

[00:19:41]Another good example of this was was when we saw Barclays came out very early after the Supreme Court judgment in April 2025 to to say that of course they would make sure that all their bathrooms and things were were all in line with the law. And then and that prompted a big backlash from from the activists against them. So again, if I was them, I'd be thinking, I'm really not going to stick my head above the parapet and now draw attention to myself as being a supposed LGBT ally when I know I'm just going to get that thrown back in my face. I'd rather just save my money. And that makes sense to me. There were some brands, I think, who made a mistake last year who seemed to have learned from it this year. So, for example, after the Supreme Court ruling in April 2025, the pod the activist podcast Queer AF, not sure if anybody listening is a big fan, probably not. Um, was hosted at the law firm Clifford Chance in Canary Warf, presumably with an audience of young lawyers. It was a transidentified host who called the Supreme Court judges, I'm gonna swear here, so prepare yourselves, idiots. um in in language which then appeared in the final episode um and the and the story ended up in the times which is extremely embarrassing for them as it shows they've taken the side of an argument against three um Supreme Court judges which is not a good look for a law firm. So I didn't see um anything at all from Clifford Chance on LinkedIn this year and I know that their global head of DEI a Chuck called Tin and Brady who's global activist on LGBT um left quite soon after that scandal and he seems not to have been directly replaced.

[00:21:22]So oil companies, water companies, supermarkets, banks, law firms, consultancies, all of these firms pretty much have something to hide, I'm afraid.

[00:21:31]and and so it just does this doesn't seem like a safe bet and why would you draw attention to yourself and invite this kind of scrutiny and accusations that you really don't need. You're spending money to try and look good and if it's doing the opposite, you're going to bin it. It also made me think of my day at the Stonewall Workplace Conference, which many of you will have enjoyed the um episode I did about that on here um with Levi Pay. Um and I I remember um I talked about the the fact that there were protesters outside the Stonewall conference who who were the queers for Palestine um and they were targeting the Stonewall conference over Stonewall's links to various um defense companies who who they had chosen to feature on the Workplace Equality Index firms like BAE. So, so you could already see that any firm trying to present itself as being as being one of the good guys is inviting a really high level of scrutiny over every part of their business. And at some point, you're going to think, do we need the risk?

[00:22:29]This is supposed to be feel-good fun and suddenly it's turning into a nightmare.

[00:22:32]Let's chuck it. So, the third reason to mention is that this has become too party political, this all this stuff. So it's not just about um the Supreme Court ruling and the cast review and everything that we've seen which has made this made this issue into something which is getting headlines and politicians are commenting on. The fact is that it's actually become party political. That's what's really really put them off. So in 2025, Birmingham, Brighton, Manchester, and Pride in London all suspended political party participation with organizers stating, "We will not stand by as the dignity, safety, and humanity of our trans siblings are debated, delayed, or denied." Now, this came straight after the Supreme Court ruling and and then PM K stars declared support for it. Um, and so it read as a pointed dig at Labor, but really, I don't think they were big fans of anybody at that point. So, I think it looks like with hindsight it looks like quite a serious misjudgment by the prides and it's really backfired.

[00:23:33]The reason for that is because paradoxically it actually underlined the very thing that everyone had been trying to play down that there is a strong political element to pride and that's something big brands will always run a mile for from for all sorts of reasons.

[00:23:47]There's a second layer to this too.

[00:23:49]Pride 2026 happened less than a month after the UK's local elections saw 12 councils switch to reform UK control.

[00:23:56]Several of which brought in a policy allowing only two flags on council buildings, the Union Jack or the St. George's Cross. So they were saying no to the Pride flag, no to the Ukraine flag, absolutely nothing. So again, if if we're saying that if Reform UK is saying taking down the flag is a political move by them, then it kind of follows that even that having it up is also political statement of sorts. So again, it's just making the point that it's giving employers a reason, another reason not to do this because it doesn't fit with their usual policy of political neutrality. Actually, James Roberts had some interesting comments on this as well. I think the decision from uh individual prides to not have any political parties is it's the shooting yourself in the foot end of council culture because they've wanted to not have certain political parties but realize they can't they can't pick and choose with that. So the only way you can do that is to say none of you. And as you say, the the knock- on effect from that is you make it look like more of a political issue to people who hadn't realized that it is. Um in a similar way to saying, well, we're not going to take sponsorship from this bank or from this company for for things.

[00:25:10]You're now making it about the political position of both that bank or a completely different issue. and therefore you are you are layering politics onto something that is not the reason that these brands were engaging with you in the first place. There's a there's a lack of there's a lack of intelligence I think in quite a lot of the activist types. Um but also I think there's a a lack of strategy. They've been very strategic in some ways like the whole how we infiltrate um a whole sector and how we you know become seen as um you know an extension of things that people are already accepting all that kind of stuff but actually now it feels very reactionary and I'm hoping it's the death throws of the the ideology um but making those sorts of decisions that are not really that thought through. The fourth reason I'm broadly calling the ick factor.

[00:26:06]Um, [sighs] puberty blockers, the reality of so-called gender affirming care, the crossdressing, what's a crossdresser versus a trans woman. These are all very good questions that employers are starting to ask. There's also a level of sexualization which is a big part of why plenty of perfectly sensible gay men and lesbians have really gone off pride because it puts them next to all sorts of people and messaging that they don't want to be associated with, especially with children around. In line with the accusation that pride is just full of straight people, this year I actually went along when lots of my gay friends didn't bother. So, um, and I can report back that it was a real mixed bag to be honest. It was a really hot day and there was generally a reasonably good vibe. I thought frankly there were lots of women there who thought they were on a sort they looked like they were on a hen knight frankly. I don't know how engaged they were in the political aspect of it. I think a lot of the people just don't think about this stuff very deeply to be honest. But I think what did stand out especially around the trans and non-binary stage in Soho Square was that I did see some quite dubious characters around. I ran into the YouTuber Mr. Menow who's took some footage. So I'll put that on here as well so you can see some of these people middle-aged. I'm not going to call these people trans women. If they want to call themselves that, I guess they can have a go. But these people just look like, frankly, rather ropey crossdressers. If you believe in all this stuff, you're going to call them a trans woman. If you don't believe in all this stuff, you're going to say that's just a crossdresser.

[00:27:37]A pretty dodgy looking crossdresser at that. These are just really not characters that you want to put your brand next to. We saw young people dressed as furries. So, they were in one of them had a tail. They had these dog masks with these harnesses, which I'm pretty sure is a sex thing. I don't really know. I'm not actually that interested, but it just didn't feel like these people were doing well. Another thing that I saw was lots of young women who were proudly displaying um myctomy, double mastctomy scars. It was a really hot day, so they had their shirts off and they were walking around with these with these scars right across their chest. Um, and again, depending on where you are with this stuff, I guess some people look at that and think, "Oh, how wonderful for that trans man who's now living his true self and can enjoy the sunshine with his shirt off." Again, if you don't believe in all this stuff, you're looking and seeing some women who got stuck on the idea that they're actually a man on the inside in some way and had some pretty dramatic surgery done which they can't possibly reverse now if they decide later it wasn't the right move. Some of this stuff, it kind of depends what you're seeing.

[00:28:54]It depends on your lens. Um, there was another young woman who had a sign saying, "Donate to my top surgery and had a QR code and she wanted you to take a picture and and therefore donate to her crowdfunder to have to have presumably private um privately done surgery to have her breasts removed. Um, presumably because she had decided that she is a man on the inside as well and was born in the wrong body. I don't know. If you're into this stuff, you're seeing something different. If you're not into this stuff, you're thinking, "What is going on here?" This whole thing just doesn't feel like something that you want your brand next to. To me, and I think a lot of employers are coming to the same realization. There were also a real a lot of very tacky stalls with telling selling pin badges.

[00:29:46]It was all the kind of drag culture stuff. There was a a stall called Dragged Out. So, um, if you're looking for, um, a a pin badge that says or slag or suck me dry, you'd come to the right place. I don't think that's really what you want your brand's logo next to.

[00:30:04]I certainly don't think that that's what the employers are in the mood for right now.

[00:30:08]I think in terms of the sexualized messaging around this sort of movement, um there was a the Attitude Awards in October 2025 were highly sexualized and that had Virgin Atlantic and Jaguar both sponsoring it. Um and they put a lot of those those speeches and jokes on Instagram and they were really really shocking. And some of the jokes were about the sponsors who were sitting there. I mean, I'm almost to I mean, am I too embarrassed to tell you what they were? And I'm just going to go for it. I mean, there were like jokes about the sponsors who were sitting there.

[00:30:45]I don't think I would have been that impressed. I just don't think any of that stuff is appropriate. There was jokes about like seaman and stuff. I mean, what are we doing here? Is that something you want your brand next to?

[00:30:56]It just shows to me that they've lost they've lost sight of what's what's appropriate. Moving on from the ick factor, the fifth reason I think is what I'm calling the unreliable partner problem. So I think employers are realizing that they've taken a lot of bad advice from people from external activists, advisers who they trusted when they shouldn't have done. Um, I think a lot of heads of DEI came into their organizations masquerading as people who were going to streamline and modernize their organization, but have in fact brought in a whole load of really bad ideas and some pretty dodgy policies to be honest, which they now need to get get it out of there. Um, and also brought that into the culture more more broadly. I think they've trusted their LGBT staff networks as well.

[00:31:43]they've given much too much credence to their lived experience, not realizing that those people don't represent the entire breadth of people who are LGBT um who might have very different feelings on this stuff. Those people seem to have left those networks. So, you're getting a very distorted view of what this collection of people coming under LGBT seems to seems to involve these days. They've also taken advice from Stonewall, who they thought they can trust, all sorts of external speakers who've turned out to have absolutely no qualifications in anything. Um, and even the CIPD, who we also know have got all this stuff wrong.

[00:32:20]So, they've taken an awful lot of bad advice from people who they've trusted.

[00:32:23]Um, and some of the other people that they've trusted were were what they would call partners. So, this is a euphemism for meaning a supplier. And some of these partners have been masquerading as a lot more credible than they actually were.

[00:32:36]and they were kind of they they could kind of do a reasonable job of seeming professional when everything was going their way. But now that they're under real pressure and things aren't going their way, what I'm seeing is that they're really starting to act out and some of it's really quite shocking and it's not remotely what a big brand would expect from a supplier or even a former supplier. So, it's been pretty shocking.

[00:33:00]There's a group which I've mentioned before on this podcast called Trans in the City which is run by a person called Bobby Picard who is born male calls himself a trans woman. Um but I think it's really important to remember that this person is born male for reasons I'll come on to in a second. So, Trans in the City has been very successful at convincing a lot of big big firms that trans and non-binary was a was a group of people who needed to be given special accommodations and specially warm welcomes and all sorts of special policies um when when joining their organization and this would make their organizations look really modern and inclusive. So, so for a long time they wor with a lot of big brands. Um, and they actually still have on their in their uh literature um Google, BP, JP Morgan, Wix, OO, Deutsche Bank, EY, Sage, Barclays, Clifford Chance, Clyde and Co. Amazon, Gallagher, Credit Swiss, Bloomberg, Sky, Else, Witbred, PWC.

[00:34:04]But I think since the vibe shift, I've noticed a really big change in the mood of what they're putting out and the tone of their materials. In the episode I did about the Stonewall conference back in the spring of 2025, I mentioned that Bobby Pickard was there and and he was not very complimentary um about Barclays who used to be um one of their sponsors.

[00:34:28]So I was assuming that they no longer are. I found that quite surprising. That is not normal for a former supplier to be slagging off their exclients like this. It's hard to explain how shocking that is unless you've been a supplier to some of these brands as I have.

[00:34:44]Even when you stop working with them, you still don't ever slag them off in public. It's it's just completely inappropriate. And it also guarantees that nobody will want to work with you again. I know quite a lot of people now who watch Bobby Pickard quite closely.

[00:34:59]And on Bobby's Instagram recently, there have been a couple of really shocking stories which I wanted to discuss here.

[00:35:06]The first is this video which Bobby posted in May.

[00:35:14]If you have the chance and you want to and you have the ability to leave the country, go and find a life somewhere that's better than the UK.

[00:35:28]And frankly, you've got a whole lot of bloody choice around your grip. You know, go and find somewhere else. If you can do it, just get the hell out.

[00:35:41]If you're going to stay, then I don't think you got much choice.

[00:35:46]You know, I've been using women's toilets without any problem at all.

[00:35:50]Women's changing rooms without any problem at all for years, years, and years.

[00:35:56]And I'm not going to change whatever the law says.

[00:36:00]I'm just going to carry on doing what I have always done without harming anybody. I'm just going to carry on doing it.

[00:36:10]And I guess I'm not going to tell anybody to break the law, but I have no intention of following the law. People want to stop me using the toilet, then fine. I will just urinate on their carpet in the middle of the office and I don't care.

[00:36:27]I I honestly I really do not care. I was going to say something else then.

[00:36:35]The law is just ridiculous.

[00:36:39]It's uninforcable. It's ridiculous. It's incredibly hateful. It's just such a waste of time. I've got no intention of following it.

[00:36:50]sending you loads and loads of love.

[00:36:56]>> I mean, I'm not even quite sure what to say about that, especially when you remember that this person is born male.

[00:37:07]I mean, I might just move on because I really just don't know what to say. I think anybody listening to this podcast is having the same reaction as me. I mean, this is Bobby saying he's going to pee on the floor if he's not allowed to use the ladies Lou.

[00:37:23]Trans in the City also held their gala at Clifford Chanc's offices in 2023 and um Trans in the City also held an all day event or their student ambassadors event at Barclays which I actually attended. So this this is a this is an organization that used to have very very good relationships with some really big firms and BP as well. I think Bobby worked at BP and had good relationships there. There were certainly people from EY at that student ambassadors event that I attended in 2023 as well. So these are very very solid relationships with some very very big firms and from where I'm standing it seems to have fallen apart and Bobby is not happy.

[00:38:07]Another post which also really shocked me um which Bobby put on Instagram this time on the 8th of June saying that he'd met um Maryanne Stevenson who is the chair of the Equality Human Rights Commission at an event. So this is what he writes. Um I'm the first person to negotiate, the first to try and promote reason. The first to try and bring humanity and empathy to a situation. I also understand that sometimes you go into battle and make your point with such force that people remember it.

[00:38:39]Anyway, that's why while at Stonewall's Pride celebration when I happened to bump into Mary Anne Stevenson, head of the EHRC, I spent 10 minutes tearing a strip off her, destroying her guidance and arguments and almost reducing her to tears.

[00:38:57]I don't apologize for it.

[00:39:01]Sorry, this is actually quite hard to read. I don't apologize for it. The impact of her actions needs to be spelled out to her in plain language. I expect it ruined her evening as much as me getting annoyed ruined mine. I hope I've ruined some nights of sleep for her, too, as she reflects on my points and realizes in 25 years they'll be they'll be apologizing for her guidance in Parliament.

[00:39:28]I expect she'll now not want to talk to me again.

[00:39:32]>> Yeah, but probably right on that one. I don't have a problem with that.

[00:39:37]She's done nothing but ignore every attempt to engage with me and trans in the city up to now anyway. So far as I'm concerned, so as far as I'm concerned, nothing lost. Happy Pride. Sometimes it's it's a celebration. Sometimes it's a process protest, but it's always a time when you roll up your sleeves and do what you believe is the right thing to do. Again, I think it's really important to remember that this person is born male.

[00:40:03]And if you don't believe people can change sex, this person is still a man.

[00:40:08]And this is how they're talking about publicly a public encounter with somebody in her professional role.

[00:40:20]I'm going to just move on.

[00:40:22]So, the other thing I noticed was at Pride in London, the the sponsors had to carry a sort of lollipop with the name of their um of their brand on it and those were in the trans colors. That was the pink and the blue and the white. I don't know if they had been told that in advance, but what I saw from that was that even if you had decided, okay, we'll do pride this year, but we'll go along and we'll make sure that it's just the old pride colors, not the trans colors and not the progress flag, the one with the chevron, which means all sorts of other political things. you wouldn't have any control over the fact that you, the person at the front of your section of the parade, had to be holding this lollipop stick with this sign on it in those trans colors. Um, I also saw Pips Bunts, who some of you might know, who's quite a famous character. Um, I think I think I'm not even sure if he's a calls himself a transwoman these days. I think he's still gender fluid, so some days he's a man, some days he's a woman. I'm going to go with man for this. Um, but I saw him marching alongside Mastercard. So, I don't know whether he was invited by Mastercard, whether there may be a client of his or whether he just tagged along. I have no idea. Um, but it's a it's a kind of a good example of you just don't as a brand, even if you if you're the person that makes a decision and you don't go along, you've got very little control over what happens on the day. The sixth reason is that it's an awful lot of work now for these brands to think about sponsoring something like the Pride parades. So, and [clears throat] it's also expensive.

[00:41:55]There's there's no other situation really where you put your your customers through to so much work and charge them a huge amount of money. It just isn't really the done thing. You try and generally anybody who sells services or products generally knows the name of the game is to try and get them to to hand over their money as quickly and easily as possible. Not for Pride in London, uh, whose own Pride pledge, which is a baseline requirement for any organization wanting to march, basically asks participants to be proactive on anti-racism, which isn't terribly well defined, gender equality, disability inclusion, gender identity, and every part of the LGBT plus community. So they have to supply evidence of their work across eight um eight separate categories including sexuality, gender, gender identity, race, age, nationality, disability, religion, um and to prove their continuous yearround support for the LGBT plus community, not just a one-day appearance, and to demonstrate concrete steps taken to reduce their environmental impact as well. So if you fail on any of this, Pride in London can simply reject your application and that's before you've even paid your several thousands of pounds for your entry fee and built your built your float. Um I think that in itself will have put a lot of people off because they just don't have that kind of time to spend all to spend on this kind of thing, especially if they're also paying. And I remember when I started looking at the Stonewall Workplace Equality Index and started asking brands whether they were going to be doing that this year, this was a couple of years ago now. Many of them would say, "Oh, we did it last year. We're not doing it every year.

[00:43:38]We're looking at, you know, how the best spend, you know, it's quite a lot of, you know, spend for us. We do it, you know, you know, we're looking at resources this year." So that actually gives them quite a good excuse for not doing it, but it's also is a genuine reason for not doing it. It's just too much work.

[00:43:55]And it for me it really shows a lack of understanding of their own of their customers and their customers priorities and what actually employers are really looking for. Employers wanted, you know, with the Pride stuff, employers wanted a really easy, feel-good, frankly pretty cheap way to stick some rainbows on something for better branding. Fine.

[00:44:15]That was fine when it was all going well. They don't want a whole load of hassle, a whole load of risk to their brand and to spend money and to have to do all this work in order to be allowed to spend the money. Just completely bananas. So, at some point they're going to start thinking, what else could we could we be spending this time doing? Do we really have the luxury of spending all this time jumping through all these hoops for pride?

[00:44:40]You know, this this just doesn't seem this just doesn't frankly doesn't seem sensible. And it's a question that gives senior leaders the perfect excuse to drop the whole thing. So coming to reason number seven is that it's just no longer fashionable or fresh. And I think we've known about that it's sort of going out of fashion for a long time.

[00:44:58]But I'd like to talk a little bit about the fact that it doesn't feel fresh anymore. It doesn't feel fun. Everything looks very tired.

[00:45:07]The bunt the physical bunting itself looks tired. The messaging is tired. I'm wondering if these activists have chosen the wrong tactics. What they seem to be saying is give us money because to be on the right side of history and because we're not doing well and we feel really sad and we're really up against it and everything is against us and all the politicians are against us and the media is against us. I just don't think that's a willing a winning narrative.

[00:45:35]These sorts of employers like to be associated with things that are fun and successful and feel good. This feels like kind of a downer and it feels it just doesn't feel positive. And I think this year the activists really really suffered from the fact that the World Cup was also on during during June and is genuinely more feel-good and more fun and also has bunting and visible displays of it. So, so I think if you were say a supermarket or a bar and you're looking to make your brand look fun for the summer and you've got the option of the World Cup, which is putting everybody's country flags all I'm sure everybody's seen it. All that bunting everywhere. It looks fun. It feels fresh, you know? It's it's it doesn't and actually doesn't feel too bloy. So, you're not even putting off the women. It just it's just like a nice fun thing compared to tatty old bunting from Pride, which a lot of people know is associated with all sorts of dubious messages that you don't want your brand next to. just feels like a no-brainer to me. I honestly think to a certain extent it's just that it just feels kind of done.

[00:46:39]It's just done. So, those are my seven reasons. It's a pretty long list. Um, and I think but I think it's really worth understanding each of those reasons separately and realizing that there's a really there's now a really big menu of reasons to drop this stuff.

[00:46:54]And it and it's quite convenient if you're looking to save some budget. It's also convenient if you yourself have realized that there's more to this stuff than you originally realized. Even if it's not your role to do all this marketing stuff, you've now got a reason a menu of reasons to show to the decision makers and say, "Look at all this stuff. Is this really a good use of our time?" So, if you're a senior leader who wants to quietly move your organization away from all the trans and LGBT pride agenda for ideological reasons, you've now got a really long menu of respectable sounding, frankly, excuses to choose from. So you never actually have to say I think this is a huge mistake and we never should have done it in the first place. So I'm wondering if it'll be this pile up of polit of practical reasons that finally brings the whole thing to a halt rather than anyone ever admitting that that that it was a mistake to back this movement in the first place certainly without understanding it properly. So that's where we are. I hope some of that's been useful for you. Um and uh there's always more to discuss. So we yeah we'll continue to bring this this sort of analysis. Um I am launching something new to do with this is working. So if you're an employer listening um please do check the link in the show notes sign up to make sure you you can see when that goes live and um I will keep doing um episodes if this isn't working as well because I know a lot of people are as interested as as I am in what else is going on in workplaces and how employers are going to change TAC and do things better moving forward. So that's it for now.

[00:48:22]There will be more soon. Okay, thanks for listening.

[00:48:28][music]